Athens Area Chamber endorses transportation tax

Thursday

The Athens Area Chamber of Commerce has endorsed a regional 1 percent sales tax for transportation that will be on the ballot July 31.

Chambers of commerce in the Northeast Georgia region will mount a campaign in support of the tax, Athens chamber President Doc Eldridge said.

"Our main goal is to encourage people to vote for it and make sure they understand there's no Plan B," he said.

If voters approve it, the tax will raise about $1 billion over 10 years, funding projects like four-laning U.S. Highway 78 and widening other roads, freeway-style interchanges on Georgia Highway 316, a Winder bypass, a new Athens Perimeter exit between Oglethorpe Avenue and Atlanta Highway, Athens-Ben Epps airport improvements and more frequent bus service and bicycle lanes in Athens. A roundtable of 24 mayors and commissioners from each county in the region chose the projects last year.

A quarter of the funding will go to local governments to spend as they choose.

If the tax is voted down, local governments will have to fund 30 percent of state transportation projects, triple the amount they pay now.

"A 'no' vote will have significant impacts on the region, and it's for 10 years," Eldridge said.

Better transportation infrastructure and less traffic are essential to business growth, he said, noting that Caterpillar executives have said that T-SPLOST was one reason they decided to build a new plant in Bogart.

"That's a pretty big endorsement for our area," Eldridge said.

Athens is in the Atlanta television market, so local chambers will rely heavily on an ad campaign from Connect Georgia, a group formed by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce to promote T-SPLOST. The local public-relations effort will be inexpensive and mostly involve direct mail and word of mouth, Eldridge said.

Many officials believe that the more voters go to the polls, the better the chances the tax passes, since mostly Republicans who may be predisposed to oppose any new taxes will be voting in the July 31 primaries.

Turnout in Athens July 31 will be boosted by at least two state House of Representatives races, local commission races and a referendum on Sunday retail alcohol sales, Eldridge said.

"Hopefully, we'll have a larger than normal turnout in our community," he said.

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